I am a human being.

I was once involved in an online discussion about Pride Parades with a white middle class feminist magazine writer, and she eventually got around to saying something that was rather revealing. She claimed that it was sometimes difficult for liberals such as herself to defend minorities when they did things that “normal” people found “icky.” She didn’t use those exact terms, but that’s what she meant. She spoke of black people who didn’t use what she thought of as correct grammar and how some poor people had children they couldn’t afford. And she didn’t like gay men acting all queeny and flamboyant, and some of them have sex with other men they hardly know. Oh, my. Despite the fact that she could talk a good liberal, LGBT ally game when she wanted to, she was an elitist snob who believed that her way of life was the gold standard.

I know there are people out there like this. Not all bigots are as direct and honest as the WBC, and not all homophobes are likely to call you a faggot or a dyke. But it has been my experience that the majority of straight people who claim to be allies actually are. Does that mean they don’t have a homophobic bone in their body. Well, no, but I can’t say that I don’t have a homophobic bone in my body. Homophobia is part of our culture, just like racism, sexism and hostility toward the poor. It’s something we were taught, and I think most well-intentioned people are willing to reexamine their attitudes once they find out there’s a problem. I have no desire to make those people uncomfortable or feel ashamed by harshly denouncing them as homophobic at the drop of a hat. And I hope that I will be met with the same forbearance if I should stumble.

I’m a poor, fat, disabled gay man with mental health issues, so I have some insight into the problems faced by poor, fat disabled gay men with mental health issues, and I would like to make life just a little easier for people like myself, but that doesn’t make me a saint, and I know it. I know I can be selfish, insensitive and hurtful. And I know that people who are supposedly more “privileged” than I am can and do feel pain and have significant problems. Kings and queens as well as peasants suffer and die. Life can be difficult and way too short no matter how good you have it according to someone else’s calculus.

I may be a member of several minority groups, but isn’t everybody part of one minority group or another? Ultimately, I like to think that I am a human being and a part of the known universe. I like to think that in some sense I belong to everything and everyone.